"You jest, of course." Ehara's eyes look northward from the ridge overlook where his own archers take their position behind the exposed sandstone. The flatiron-shaped stones crest the hills that control the flat on the north side of the valley.

"Sea-Priests never jest.''

"Your pardon, I beg. My deepest apologies for doubting your veracity."

The Sea-Marshal turns in the saddle, and his cold eyes fix upon the Lord of Dumar as though he were but a junior captain of lancers. "Lord Ehara, listen carefully. The sorceress may call down her wizardry on my lancers or upon yours. I have insisted on the separation so that she must use great powers. My sea- captains know what to do if the wizardry fails upon you. If it falls upon my lancers, you must wait only until the sorcery ceases. Then you must attack immediately, before she can regain her strength."

Ehara frowns. "You speak as though you will not be with your lancers or with me."

"No. I will be concealed near the entrance to the Vale. Even the sorceress will not discern me. If I am successful, she will not have the chance to work any wizardry. If not, you must know what to do."

"What if she does not come? Or arrives by another route?" asks Ehara.

"There are no other routes," states jerRestin.

"There are always other ways." Ehara laughs easily.

"She could take a game trail and have her armsmen strung out like an unraveled net, where they could be picked off at every turn by archers." The Sea-Marshal shrugs. "She would still have to attack our armsmen from below, and her wizardry is limited to two or three mighty spells. That is why our forces are on separate hills."

"She has used mighty sorcery before." points out Ehara.

"And every time she has been laid low for weeks, if not longer. She will attempt to avoid such sorcery because she wishes to conquer Dumar, not destroy it."

"You seem to know a great deal about her." Ehara chuckles. "Does she appeal to you? You know of what I speak."

JerRestin shakes his head with a slight body shudder "The woman appalls me. She is an unnatural creature from the mist worlds. I would not have her in chains or in any other fashion. She must be defeated, destroyed if that is possible."

"I might like her in chains," muses Ehara.

"Only with her mouth gagged," responds jerRestin. "She turned Lord Behlem into ashes with but her voice."

"That was no great loss." Ehara scans the hills to the north side of the Vale again, then nods. His archers have seemingly vanished into the red boulders, and his lancers are well sheltered under the natural overhangs and out of sight of the road.

"Except to Neserea." A grim smile plays over jerRestin's lips. "I must go to instruct my officers on how to put an end to the sorceress."

"The harmonies be with you."

"And with you, friend and ally."

The two hors.e.m.e.n separate, one heading down the ridge to the cast, thc other to the north.

96.

The gelding whuffed once, and then, a dozen paces later, once more.

"We'll be stopping for water before long." Anna glanced ahead along the curving road that descended into another narrow valley and toward a line of trees. A stream? She hoped so as she leaned forward in the saddle and patted Farinelli. "Just hold on, fellow."

Her light green shirt was plastered against her shoulders with sweat raised by the summer sun beating down from behind, and the back of her neck was going to be even more sunburned. Even with the return of the rains, Anna reflected, Defalk was just plain hot, hotter than Iowa in summer, more like Georgia or Alabama or south Florida away from the water-except hotter.

Riding beside her, Jecks looked over, but did not speak. She knew his unspoken question, and she still had no clear answer in her mind, except that they couldn't take the main road into the valley where Ehara was sure to set up an ambush. She hoped that, once they were closer to the Vale of Cuetayl, her sorcery would provide a clearer view of the options open to her.

The sorceress and regent looked toward the arms commander. "Hanfor?"

'Yes. Lady Anna?"

"Will we be stopping to water the mounts at that stream?" Anna brushed aside a pesky horsefly, once, twice.

Farinelli's tail swished as the horsefly buzzed around the gelding's hindquarters.

"The scouts have said that the road toward Dumar remains clear for the next five deks," answered Hanfor.

"I had thought we would water our mounts and let the men stand down. Have you a problem?"

"Oh, no. I was going to try the mirror again."

"The players could use a rest also, Lady Anna," Liende added.

Anna laughed. "Everyone gets a break." Except you. You have to do sorcery. She stood in the stirrups for a moment, ignoring the tightening muscles in her thighs, then eased back into a saddle that was getting harder by the dek for the ride down to the stream.

"Does the shield spell draw too much from you?" Jecks asked quietly.

"No. I can feel it, like a spiderweb or the faintest brush of something against my skin. . .but so far..."

Anna shrugged, looking down at the shield in the case by her knee.

"Good." Jecks nodded.

The trees by the narrow river were some form of willows growing so thickly that the vanguard had to ride two thirds of the length of the short valley to find a clear approach to the water.

"Purple Company. . . take your mounts downstream from where water bottles are filled. Down by the gray rock."

"Green Company! Wait for Purple... I said wait, MykIl! You want to fill evexy water bottle in the com- pany..."

"...don't push, Distek..."

"...enough water for everyone..."

Anna let Farinelli drink, then guided him back to a grove a dozen yards north of the stream, where she dismounted and tied him to a sapling. By the time she had the mirror unpacked and the lutar tuned, she had been joined by Hanfor, Jecks, and Liende.

They waited quietly as she ran through her vocalises. To the southwest, the watering and muted clamor continued. The sorceress pushed away the thought that watering the mounts of a full-sized anny would have been impossible and concentrated on the words and chords of the spell.

"Danger in the Vale, danger near, show Dumar' s armed danger bright and clear..."

Anna lowered the lutar and took a deep breath.

The gla.s.s turned to a map-picture of the Vale of Cuetayl, and the Y-shaped hills, centered on the spot where the road from Stromwer entered the west end of the valIey. A small hill flanked the road, and then dropped away to a flat. The Y-shaped hills were farther back.

"That hill-if there is an attack against you, it will come from there," said Jecks.

"Me?"

"You remain the force of Defalk," the lord pointed out. "I know little, except there are books that say the Sea-Priests have enchanted javelins-much as the enchanted crossbow bolt of Sargol's. The javelins are barbed. Sometimes they smear the barbs with the poisons of fish."

"Lovely," said Anna. The more she heard about the Sturinnese, the worse it got, and no one seemed to think that much about it-except her. Was she overreacting? Again? Avery had always claimed she overreacted to everything. "Let's see if the mirror can show us another route into the Vale."

From behind Jecks' shoulder, Liende nodded. Hanfor held his portable sketching gear, his face blank.

Jecks watched Anna, concern in his hazel eyes.

Anna took out the spell folder and rechecked the words, the small changes she'd made in the spell, hoping to avoid a repeat of the minor-smashing in Stromwer. Before, the mirror had flickered through images so rapidly that none of them had been able to see anything-except that there were clearly many possible solutions, so many that they couldn't be sorted out, even by sorcery.

At the time, Anna had wanted to scream. She hadn't been able to think of one decent solution, and she still couldn't, except in the general sense that she needed a way to flank the armsmen waiting in the Vale.

She cleared her throat, then lifted the lutar once more, and sang.

"Show me best and show me clear the route to avoid this danger near.

Like a vision, like a map or plot..."

This time the gla.s.s came up blank.

s.h.i.t!...So now what? Anna frowned. "This is going to take a bit."

Trying to compose another spell in her head took what seemed forever. Finally, she lifted the lutar once more.

"Show the route, where it will start to take us to the Vale's very heart, away from that road that all do take, above the lines our foes do make..."

A lousy spell...truly lousy....

Weak spell or not, the gla.s.s presented another map-picture, showing a depression in the road where a trail wound off to the left. Anna could see what looked to be the narrow gorge that held the road and stream leading down into the Vale of Cuetayl.

"How far from the entry gorge?" she asked.

"Two deks, mayhap." Hanfor sketched rapidly.

Anna thought and waited, thinking. She needed a better map or idea.

When Hanfor nodded, she had another spell ready, one probably equally shaky. Nonetheless, she tried it.

"Show us now and from the air, the southern trail to Vale, and how it winds its way to there..."

Anna looked at the image in the gla.s.s, and there was an image, much to her surprise. The so-called trail looked more like a goat track winding along a series of switch-backs, but eventually coming out on .a plateau overlooking the middle of the Vale.

"The destination... that is good. But the trail, that is dangerous." Jecks fingered his clean-shaven chin.

As the steam began to rise from the mirror frame, Han-for sketched even more rapidly, speaking as he did. "We won't reach that trail until late today. I would hazard. The stream is still close to the road. We could stop there."

Anna said nothing, just nodded and studied the image as Hanfor continued to sketch out what he needed.

Finally, he nodded in turn, and Anna released the image with a couplet, and then a deep breath. She lowered the lutar and walked slowly to Farinelli to get her water bottle.

After drinking, she packed the mirror, and then the lutar.

'That's a narrow trail for mounts," mused Jecks. "Even if blessed by sorcery.

"Do you have a better idea?" Anna asked.

Jecks flushed.

"I'm sorry," she apologized. "We have to get rid of Ehara."

"We do what we must," he said stiffly.

Anna pursed her lips. She'd apologized once, and once was enough. She was getting tired of apologizing.

Even for a lord who looked like a movie star.

97.

VALE OF CUETAYL, DUMAR.

The Sea-Priest chants over the silvered water gla.s.s in a thin falsetto. Sweat beads on his forehead, mixing with dust to form rivulets of mud down his cheeks while he struggles with the melody and the tempo.

As he finishes, a small and wavering image fills the center of the gla.s.s, an image that shows a long line of horses on a narrow trail, a trail clearly not the main road into the Vale.

"The b.i.t.c.h... the unpredictable sow..."

The image shatters into silver globules that chase each other for several moments. Jerkestin sits down on a boulder, breathing heavily and ignoring the heat that seeps through his dust-smeared white trousers.

After a time, he chants again, using a voice more tenor than falsetto.

When an image forms, it shows a figure in green atop a flat hill. Behind the slender woman in the brown hat, a line of players forms. Behind them are dusty armsmen, still mounted. Flanking the sorceress are two mounted guards bearing heavy shields.

The Sea-Priest chants quickly, and the image dissolves into silver globules once more. He seats himself for a time, breathing heavily, before he climbs wearily from the shelter of the oblong rock overlooking the road and slowly scans the valley, a valley all too still for the life it encompa.s.ses.

He can sense the hidden archers and lancers to the west, but the sun has fallen on the side of the sorceress, not on her face.